The concept of collecting as many VHS copies as possible of a movie is a tremendous and noble quest. It’s also hilarious, especially when you do it for a movie like Speed.
So with that in mind, meet Ryan Beitz, who was profiled in Vice for his pursuit of every VHS copy of the Keanu Reeves masterpiece.
“Cool,” you think, maybe even laughing to yourself. “This is a guy who gets it. He’s probably awesome.”
You thought wrong.
Instead, what we have here is the worst case of this current generation, a dumpster-diver who is building this collection as some sort of protest to the very idea of capitalism. Now, I’m not one to make fun of people who don’t have a lot of money, and struggle to make ends meet. But I am going to make fun of people who glorify dumpster diving as if it’s something we should all try, and I am certainly going to make fun of someone who consciously believes that giving away Christmas gifts that were in a dumpster the day before is a good idea.
Here is how Beitz describes the World Speed Project:
I don’t give a shit whether what I do is practical or not; I just don’t want to perpetuate society’s shitty capitalism forever. If you see everything needs a use or an instrumental value as like part of a capitalistic worldview, then the World Speed Project is anti-that.
Way to take something fun and turn it into a terrible cause. Not to mention he’s bringing one of the greatest movies of all-time down with him. Beitz says some other stuff about Sigmund Freud, but it’s…exhausting.
But if you’re so inclined, you can actually donate money to Beitz’s Kickstarter campaign, so he can bring his terrible ideas to your town.
Speed deserves better than this.
